


Different but the Same

by Jolli_Bean



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Canon Compliant, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Has a Penis, Developing Relationship, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, Porn with Feelings, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 05:45:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18632026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jolli_Bean/pseuds/Jolli_Bean
Summary: Hank has always been Connor's focal point, hasn't he, the looking glass Connor has used to understand his own experiences and doubts and convictions. It's not to say that they're always in agreement, but Hank, at least, is solid ground, and Connor is adrift with his programming torn down.Newly deviated, Connor goes to see Hank after the Jericho raid. There are some things he needs to say.





	Different but the Same

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little thing I originally posted on Twitter and liked enough to add here. I just refuse to believe that if Markus has the time to go see Carl and machine!Connor has time to go to Hank's house after Jericho, deviant!Connor doesn't also absolutely have the time to go see his person.

Connor is distinctly aware of the way the deviants watch him as they gather in the church, uncertain and wary. He understands entirely – he would be afraid of the famous deviant hunter, too, in their position, but it still makes him feel...lost.

He's finally aware of who he is. He should feel liberated, and yet he just feels distinctly aware that these may be his people, but with them isn't his home. Jericho didn't belong to him the way it did to all the rest of them.

Connor doesn't know where his home is, or if he'll ever have one. But he does know where he wants to go right now, in this moment.

Markus is gone – he promised to return soon, and though he didn't tell them where he went, Connor takes that as sign enough that he has a window to take care of his personal affairs. North fixes him with a suspicious glance as he makes his way to the door, but she doesn't stop him.

Connor takes a cab to Hank's house. He doesn't now what he intends to say when he gets there, or even if Hank will be pleased with what he's done, but he doesn't know where else to go. He has to ground himself, somehow, and he doesn't know how else he can.

Because Hank has always been Connor's focal point, hasn't he, the looking glass Connor has used to understand his own experiences and doubts and convictions. It's not to say that they're always in agreement, but Hank, at least, is solid ground, and Connor is adrift with his programming torn down.

Connor just...needs to see him. He doesn't know why or what he'll say when he does, but...he needs to.

Connor hacks the autonomous cab outside Hank's house so it will continue without payment – he certainly doesn't need CyberLife to know where he's been or to put Hank in any danger. He sits in the cab after he's finished, though, pulling his hat off and straightening his hair.

He feels bereft of something without his CyberLife issued uniform and his tie to fuss with, uncomfortable in the human clothes he wore to infiltrate Jericho, but he supposes it's fitting. There isn't any going back to what he was.

Jaw clenched tight, he steps out of the cab.

Connor sets that odd fluttering inside him aside – butterflies in the stomach, he believes is the figure of speech – and rings Hank's doorbell. It's obnoxious, a blaring sound, but that doesn't stop him from ringing it again, and again, hoping Hank isn't passed out somewhere like last time.

There's something akin to an iron grasp clenched tight around Connor's thirium pump as he runs through a thousand different ways Hank may be in trouble – most likely among them that he's passed out drunk after assaulting Agent Perkins and risking his career.

It's uncomfortable, his fear and his concern and his worry. It's all he's felt since deviating, but Connor supposes that's part of being alive. It's overwhelming. It...it hurts.

But that iron hand loosens it's hold on him the moment the deadbolt turns and the door opens.

“Connor?” Hank says. There's alcohol on his breath, but he isn't drunk, and a swell of relief runs through Connor at the realization. “Jesus Christ, what are you...”

“I...needed to see you. Can I come inside?”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Different scents flood Connor's senses at once, Sumo and beer and dust and the trace of soap on Hank's skin. Connor has smelled all of it before – he knows every ingredient in Hank's beer and soap both – but it affects him differently now, flooding him with some kind of heavy warmth.

The door is barely shut behind Connor before Hank has his hands on his shoulders, turning Connor around to look at him. “What happened?”

“I found Jericho. Markus was there, and...” Hank raises an eyebrow, but he doesn't push, and Connor clenches his jaw at the frustration of not knowing how to explain this.

“I couldn't do it,” he finally says, voice so much weaker than he means it to be. Even free of his programming, he still feels like he failed.

Hank risked his entire career to buy Connor the time to close this investigation, and now...now he's here empty-handed. For the first time since he stood on the deck with Markus, Connor feels doubt weighing heavy around him, because Hank matters to him.

Hank matters more than almost anything else to him.

Connor couldn't deny what he was. Not to Markus, and certainly not to Hank. He couldn't do what CyberLife asked of him. But if Hank is hurt because of it, he almost wishes he could.

But Hank doesn't look hurt, or angry, or disappointed. His face just softens, and Connor feels something heavy lifting off of him. “Hey,” Hank says, fitting an arm around Connor's shoulders and pulling him in close. “It's alright. You're alright.”

Androids don't cry the way humans do, but Connor almost wishes they did. He wishes there was some way to release the pressure he feels inside himself, but instead, he just sags forward into Hank, fisting his hands in his sweatshirt and holding on.

“What happened with Perkins?” Connor asks into Hank's shoulder. His voice is muffled, but he can't bring himself to pull away. “Are you in trouble?”

“I'm on unpaid leave for two weeks.”

“I'm sorry. This is my fault, Lieutenant. I shouldn't have...”

“Shit, Connor, it's two weeks. It's nothing.” Hank takes him by the shoulders and puts just enough distance between them that Connor has to meet his eyes. “I assume you're not working for CyberLife anymore.”

Connor shakes his head. “I'm not.” For a moment, he watches Hank carefully, waiting for any hint of disapproval, relief working through him when there isn't any. “But Jericho is gone. Perkins found it anyway, and SWAT raided it. It's gone, and there aren't many of us left.”

“Fuck. What are you going to do?”

Connor knows the answer – he knows how unlikely his chances of success are. CyberLife will want him terminated, and he's planning to walk right through the front door. The thought of it makes him want to tuck himself back into Hank's warm embrace, and since there's nothing stopping him from being irrational anymore, that's exactly what he does.

There's a word for this, Connor realizes, when someone feels so much like home. A word for safety, and for not wanting to let go. It's the same word to explain why he doesn't want to tell Hank his plan, because he knows Hank will be afraid for him, and he wants to protect him from it.

Connor chronicles through old films and books and sonnets, because he's thorough, and he always does his research. But he doesn't need to. He knows what this is.

Hank brings his arms up around Connor, a hand warm on the back of his neck, holding tight enough that Connor can feel the patterns of Hank's fingerprints through the sensors on his skin. Connor memorizes every line so he can reconstruct the feeling later.

“You knew I wouldn't kill Markus,” Connor says into Hank's sweatshirt. “Didn't you?”

Connor has seen a number of emotions cross Hank's face since his arrival, but surprise hasn't been one of them. Hank knows who he is. He always has, even when Connor willfully refused to see it himself, and he might be the only one who really, truly does.

Connor feels Hank shrug. “You didn't kill any of the others. Didn't seem like Markus should be any different.”

“You said we might be on the wrong side of this, and you helped me anyway.”

“I mean...yeah, Connor. I didn't want anything to happen to you.” His fingers brush through the clipped hair at the base of Connor's neck. “Listen. Do you need someplace to stay, or anything else? I'll help you however I can.”

This is a mess – the revolution, the recycling camps, it's all a mess, but Hank is still beside him, trying to put himself between Connor and whatever danger he's facing.

That's the thing that does it, that fractures the last piece of Connor's self-control into fragments, that has him threading his fingers in Hank's hair and kissing him, memorizing the feel of his skin and the taste of his mouth, every last detail...

Hank makes a surprised noise, but there's no resistance in him. Instead, he just folds Connor tighter into his arms, humming when Connor's lips part against his. “Connor,” Hank says against him when he pulls back just enough for air, their foreheads pressed together. “We should...”

Wait. Take things slow. Connor's social programs supply Hank's most likely sentiments, but Connor isn't interested in any of them. Before Hank can finish, he says, “I know what I want.”

He does. He finally does. And Hank seems to believe him, because he just nods.

Connor shucks off his jacket and tosses it aside – he feels and regulates temperatures differently than humans do, but he's still distinctly aware that the heat he's feeling in this moment is something entirely internal. He's aware, too, of Hank watching his movements, a sort of desperation in his eyes.

Connor wants to prod at that, to enflame it, because he never wants Hank to stop watching him the way he is now. So the sweatshirt follows, and the thin v-neck underneath it, until all that remains is a pale expanse of freckled skin. “Touch me,” he says.

Hank does, a hand firm on his neck and his thumb dipping down to trace Connor's synthetic collarbone, like he's trying to map him, to discover the things that make them different and the ones that make them the same. “You're beautiful,” he says. “You're the most beautiful thing.”

Connor knows he's aesthetically pleasing. He was made that way. But he's never felt any sort of emotional attachment to his own appearance before...it's never mattered to him until now, when it suddenly matters very, very much.

Connor presses himself back into Hank, tugging insistently at the sweatshirt he's wearing. “So are you,” he says. He means it, as much as he's ever meant anything. He knows the last few years have been difficult for Hank, knows they've taken their toll physically, but Connor wants him to understand.

So Connor pulls at the sweatshirt until Hank lets him tug it over his head and throw it aside with his jacket. “I thought you would be neater,” Hank says. The joke is meant to be a deflection, a trick Connor has seen Hank use before when he's uncomfortable, so he just tsks disapprovingly.

“I know how to prioritize, Hank.”

There's a faded tattoo on Hank's chest, visible beneath his undershirt. A scar on his bicep – likely bullet wound given the size, a quick analysis supplies – and another – knife wound – on his left forearm. Connor commits it all to memory and then creates two additional backup files, just in case.

“I mean it,” he says to Hank. “You are.”

“Mhm.” Hank pulls Connor back in with a fond smile on his face and kisses him, thumbing at his belt. “Did you pick this outfit?”

“Yes. Why?”

Hank snorts. “Because it's a ridiculous outfit.”

Connor tilts his head like he's confused. “I'm sorry,” he says, intentionally obtuse. “Perhaps you'd prefer...” He unfastens the belt and reaches for the clasp of his jeans.

“Yeah, alright, I get it.” Hank catches Connor by the arm and jerks him towards the bedroom. Sumo lifts his head as they leave the room, but he just lies back down when Hank gestures for him to stay.

The bedroom door is barely closed before Connor backs Hank onto his bed, dropping onto his lap and grinding his hips into Hank's. The flare of sensory data running through Connor is...a lot. He's only ever been this aware of himself and his surroundings before when he's in danger.

He's never known he can feel alive and safe all at once.

Connor is impatient – he tears himself away just long enough to toe off his boots and kick off his jeans while Hank does the same. At his side, Connor flicks his fingers back and forth like he has his coin just to stop himself from pulling Hank's boxers off for him.

“Can you even...” Hank starts, looking at Connor and swallowing hard. Connor almost pretends he doesn't know what he means, just because he's deciding he likes watching Hank squirm over his discomfort a bit, but his pride wins out this time.

“Yes, Hank.”

“You have a...”

“I'm CyberLife's most advanced prototype to date.”

“And you know how to...”

“I have access to the internet, and thus, an unlimited amount of pornographic material. Do you have any other questions, Hank, or would you like to proceed?”

Hank laughs outright at that, and Connor realizes he's never really seen Hank laugh before. It's like something lifts off of him, the evidence of a few of the hard days erased from his features. Connor wants to make him laugh again, and again, and again.

“It is my first time, though,” Connor says, dropping the sharp edge from his voice so only the fondness remains.

Hank's face softens at that. “Come here,” he says, pulling Connor in by the waistband of his briefs.

Connor goes willingly, languid as he drops into Hank's lap, although Hank just twists them around so Connor's lying on his back. Connor likes this, he realizes, Hank leaning over him, caging him in, surrounding him so nothing else can reach him.

Connor twists a hand in Hank's hair and kisses him, feeling so much. He's never felt so much. It's almost overwhelming, but he has no interest at all in adjusting his sensitivity settings – even if he did, he thinks that delicate electricity rippling through him is from much more than the physical sensation.

It's devotion and adoration, and it's happiness, too. Connor has never had anything to feel happy about before, but there's something joyful alight in him now. He's never felt so much, or known he has something to lose.

Hank kisses his mouth, his jaw, his neck. “You're perfect. You're so fucking perfect,” he whispers, and Connor commits that to memory, too. No one has told him so before. He's been called advanced since the day he was activated, but the two aren't the same.

“So are you. I just want you. Please, Hank...” Connor rolls his hips up into Hank's to prove his point, relishing the groan it draws from him. “I love you.”

“I...yeah, fuck. I love you, too.”

“Then show me.”

Hank traces a finger around the metal circle outlining Connor’s thirium pump, and Connor inhales deeply to cool his systems. “Huh,” Hank breathes, looking down between them. “You know, you can feel this thing beating.” There’s a quiet sort of reverence in his voice.

They’re different, but the same. And it’s never been more clear than it is in this moment.

Hank is still wearing his undershirt, although there’s no resistance when Connor pulls it over his head and runs a hand through the thick swath of hair on his chest, running a hand over his side, sensors detecting the changes in texture on Hank’s skin, the stretch marks and scars from the hard years.

Connor understands, academically, that most humans find these things imperfect, but he doesn’t actually understand it at all. It’s all part of Hank. All of it, and so he can’t imagine not wanting any of it.

Hank moves over him, slipping down his body. Connor props himself up on an elbow to watch as Hank works his briefs off his hips, although the sensation of Hank closing a hand around him is enough to have Connor falling back onto his pillow.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and Hank snorts at that.

“Didn’t know you knew how to swear.”

Connor takes a measured breath as Hank strokes him once, dismissing an error about his rising temperatures. “I know how to swear, Hank. My social protocols just indicate…”

Connor cuts off with a groan, head lolling to the side when Hank strokes him again, pointedly this time. “You can tell me all about your social protocols later,” he says, and even though Connor knows it’s a joke, he nods anyway. He can’t think clearly, new data and sensory information flooding every one of his processors.

It’s almost enough to make him forget CyberLife and what he needs to do. Almost.

“Hank,” Connor says, because they could do this for hours, they could lie here and discover each other slowly and he still wouldn’t know enough…but there isn’t time. It weighs on him, the thought of what he has to do for his people, the knowledge that he has to go. “Hank, please…”

Connor doesn’t have it in him to explain, but he also doesn’t have to. There’s an urgency in him that Hank can sense, so his partner just nods. Hank reaches for something, fumbling with the drawer of the bedside table, and Connor’s processors are lagging enough that it takes him a moment to compute exactly what he’s searching for.

“I’m equipped with Traci model self-lubrication functions.”

Connor doesn’t expect Hank’s mouth to go slack at that – his features are his features, and he’s never marveled at any of them – nor does he expect the quiet awe on Hank’s face when he returns to his place between Connor’s legs and probes there.

Connor keens, and whether it’s Hank’s finger slipping inside him or the breathless way Hank says his name when it does, he honestly can’t say. He forgets entirely to simulate his breathing until the temperature warning flares again and he gasps for air.

“Hank,” he says, dimly aware that he's begging now.

“I've got you.” Hank pulls his hand back, and Connor whines at the loss until Hank reaches for his boxers and pushes them down, and suddenly there's so much more that Connor hasn't explored.

He thinks about taking Hank's cock in his hand and testing the weight of it, or closing his mouth around it until he has the shape of it memorized. He thinks about so much.

But what he does is close his fingers in Hank's hair and drag Hank back to him until they're pressed together, until he can feel the heavy press of Hank's body on top of him. Hank reaches between them and presses into him, and the entire time, Connor doesn't look away from him.

There's no pain in it, not because Connor can't feel pain but just because he's designed so it won't hurt, but Hank is slow and careful anyway. There are so many way only you can hurt me, but this isn't one of them, Connor wants to say, but his systems are lagging again.

It's nice, he decides, having to slow himself down, being so absorbed in this that everything else comes grinding to a halt.

Hank drops his forehead to Connor's, and Connor winds an arm around him, holding him for a moment before rolling his hips insistently.

Connor doesn't have to ask any more clearly before Hank is moving inside him, and though Connor meets his eyes while he rises up to meet him, there are no words needed here.

Connor's synthetic skin withdraw from his hand involuntarily, and he cries out at the heightened sensitivity of his sensors without that thin dermal layer between them. He can feel every minute change in the texture of Hank's skin, and beneath it, he can map the way Hank's blood flows through him.

Connor fits his exposed hand over Hank's heart, feeling the rhythm of it. It's not the same kind of energy that powers Connor, but there's electricity to it all the same. A different sort of interface, another kind of knowing.

Hank reaches between them, taking him in hand while he fucks into him. They find a rhythm, and Connor keeps his forehead tucked against Hank's neck where he can hear his pulse, and together, they chase something until Connor is overwhelmed by it, falling over the edge.

It's not long after that Hank spills inside him, kissing him while he does before dropping his head to Connor's shoulder. Connor strokes his fingers through Hank's hair, feeling calm and peaceful and like there's nothing at all he needs to do aside from be here, even if he knows it isn't true.

When Hank does pull free of him, he gathers Connor in his arms and presses a kiss to his forehead, pushing his hair back from his face. “You're leaving, aren't you?” Hank asks.

Connor supposes he didn't make detective for nothing. “There's something I need to do.”

“Oh, don't be coy, Connor. Tell me.”

Connor tucks himself tighter into Hank's side. He likes this, likes how he's stronger and faster than any other android but there's still a part of him that feels protected with Hank next to him. “I have to go to CyberLife.”

“Jesus fuck. What for?”

“They have thousands of androids there, and Markus needs the numbers. CyberLife is expecting me, so it has to be me. Only me,” he says before Hank can offer to come with him, because he could run a thousand preconstructions of this moment, and in every one of them, Hank would.

Hank breathes in once, and then again, considering it. “I don't like this,” he finally says.

“I wasn't going to tell you. I didn't want you to worry.”

Hank's hand runs up his back, across each ridge of synthetic bone in Connor's spine. “I've been worried about you since you left anyway.”

Connor pulls the synthetic skin back on his hand once more, holding it up between them, and Hank only looks at it a moment before he lays his palm against Connor's. Connor doesn't have fingerprints of his own, but he memorizes every last one of Hank's where they press into his chassis.

Connor could stay here forever. He could slip into stasis here, with Hank holding him. He never wants to leave. But he knows there's no future for them tomorrow if he doesn't do what he must tonight.

So he kisses Hank one more time, long and deep, and then he slips from the bed. He dresses while Hank pulls on his undershirt and boxers and watches him.

“Do you actually think these clothes are ridiculous?” Connor asks as he buttons his jeans.

Hank chuckles. “I think when you're done being some kind of freedom fighter, we'll take you shopping.”

It's a joke, but it's also a promise, that there's something left waiting for them on the other side of this. They leave the bedroom, and Connor says goodbye to Sumo before he slips his hand into Hank's. “I'll come back,” he says.

He believes he will, more than he did before. The odds are against him, statistically speaking, but what are numbers anyway? He has somewhere to call home, and something he doesn't intend to lose. He runs a preconstruction, imagines slipping back into Hank's arms when this is over.

Connor leaves Hank's house alone, and though each step weighs him down, there's also something unimaginably light rising and swelling inside him. It's hope, he realizes suddenly. He's never felt it before, but he doesn't know how he survived this long without it.

It's enough to carry him through, he thinks.

It has to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk with me about how soft and sweet and in love these two are on [twitter](http://twitter.com/Jolli_Bean) and [tumblr](http://jolli-bean.tumblr.com)


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